


Romancing Mrs Holt

by misura



Category: White Collar
Genre: Multi, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-10
Updated: 2010-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-30 05:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Neal will pretend to be the lovely Mrs Holt," Elizabeth said.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Romancing Mrs Holt

**Author's Note:**

> The ten prompt-words were taken from [10_dates](http://10-dates.livejournal.com/). This fic started out as a reply to [this prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/collarkink/516.html?thread=346372#t346372) over at , which asked for Neal to have to teach Peter how to seduce someone while they're undercover (because just this once, Neal's not their target's type). However, the prompt asked for a male target, whereas here, the target somehow became a woman. Oops?

If Elizabeth had been in charge of the party, Peter thought, at least the food might have been good. As it was, the food was lousy, the music seemed intended to discourage any dancing and the only person in the room whose company might be described as 'enjoyable' was supposed to spend the evening talking to someone else.

All in all, Peter thought it was going to be a long night.

 

Neal was wearing one of his own suits and looked good in it, inasfar as Peter was any judge. (He thought he didn't look so bad himself in the suit he'd rented for the occasion - not as good as Neal did, perhaps, but _good enough_ to convince people he was what he claimed to be, and in the end, that was all that mattered, didn't it?)

[01. First]

" - and this is my friend and colleague, Mr. Gardiner." Neal smiled that smile of his and held out his hand, and Peter waited for their charming hostess to smile back and forget Peter's existence.

"Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Holt." Anyone who didn't know Neal as well as Peter did might have missed the second's hesitation, the moment's slipping of the smile.

In any other situation, Peter might have enjoyed it.

"Ugh." Neal blinked. Peter wondered why Elizabeth hadn't covered this possibility in her quick crashcourse regarding How To Behave When Mixing With the Rich and the Vicious. "Would you be a nice boy and get me another glass of wine, Tom?"

"I - " Neal did that thing with his eyebrows he did when he thought Peter was screwing up and unaware of it. "Of course. Happy to."

Unfairly, Neal was beginning to look amused, rather than as if he'd just been 'ugh'ed at. Peter rehearsed his reasons for not wanting to drink too much wine ('doctor's orders' worked only so many times).

It did indeed turn out to be a very long night.

 

"She didn't like _you_ , so why should she like a gift _you_ picked out for her?"

[02. Gift]

Accepting the inevitable, Peter had decided to make the most of the situation. Specifically, he'd decided that after all the times Neal had shown off his ability to charm everyone and anyone (except Peter himself, of course), Neal deserved a bit of teasing about the one woman who'd prefered Peter.

"Because I've got impeccable taste?" Neal suggested.

"She didn't like you." The point bore repeating, Peter thought.

"Clearly, the poor woman has got _no_ taste." Neal spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "That's no reason to expose her to your idea of a suitable gift."

It was, Peter told himself, silly to feel slightly hurt at the suggestion that only a woman without any taste would prefer Peter over Neal. "You don't even _know_ what I planned on getting her." Besides, they'd been undercover. Her preference had been based purely on looks.

Maybe she was simply biased against good-looking men for some reason. Maybe she'd just been looking for someone solid and dependable, someone who looked plain and ordinary.

"Flowers or chocolate."

"Red roses," Peter admitted.

"Please tell me you sent some to Elizabeth as well."

 

"Neal will pretend to be the lovely Mrs Holt," Elizabeth said.

[03. School]

"Is this really necessary?" Peter didn't think so, but both Neal and Elizabeth had been rather insistent on his needing a bit of 'charm school' and so here they were.

"Tom!" Neal pulled off fake-looking smiles as well as he did genuine-looking ones. At least with the fake-looking ones, it was a lot easier for Peter to keep thinking of why he was here. "Thank you _so_ much for the _lovely_ flowers! _Red_ roses! It's been _ages_ since I've gotten _red roses_ from such a _handsome_ young _stud_."

Elizabeth suddenly got a coughing fit. "Laying it on a bit thick, aren't you?" Peter said dryly.

"Peter, I was there at your first meeting, remember?" Neal grimaced. "If you and she were professionally involved in any way, you should be suing her for sexual harassment."

"It wasn't _that_ bad," Peter protested. He didn't really _feel_ anything when the woman touched him; it was just a job, after all, just a role he was playing. She wasn't touching _him_.

"Really?" Peter only had a moment's warning before Neal had crossed the distance between them. "So it doesn't make you at all uncomfortable when I do something like this, does it?"

Peter stared at Neal's too close face, feeling the way Neal's body seemed to fit against his perfectly.

 

"He's not angry with _you_ , love," Elizabeth said.

[04. Feelings]

"I don't understand why he'd be angry at _anyone_." Peter had thought he understood Neal pretty well by now. Even that afternoon had just been Neal being _Neal_ , pushing just to see how far Peter would let him go. Doing it in front of Elizabeth, so that Peter wouldn't need to be embarrassed when he told her about it. So that Peter wouldn't need to say anything at all.

Elizabeth sighed. "If you saw another man putting his hands all over me, wouldn't you be angry?"

"I'm your _husband_." That seemed to be a safer answer than: 'Not if it was Neal and you looked like you were enjoying yourself'. "And it's not as if the woman is harassing me; having her like me is what we _want_. She's our in. It's as simple as that."

"Does it bother you, seeing some woman being all over Neal?" Peter hesitated. "Because I can tell you it bothers _me_ , sometimes. When I know he's only putting up with it, letting them do it because he thinks he should, instead of because he wants them to."

"Neal knows that when he doesn't like something, he can simply tell me."

" _You_ know that, and _I_ know that, but maybe _Neal_ doesn't." Peter opened his mouth to protest when Elizabeth took his hand. "He wants you to like him, Peter. Even when you tell him he doesn't have to do something, if he thinks it's a way of making himself useful to you, he'll still do it."

In other words: Neal was an idiot, and Peter was one, too, for not having noticed it. "Then tell me what I am supposed to do!"

 

"For any date you don't want to involve snuggling, action-movies are the way to go," Neal said.

[05. Movie Theater]

"I'll remember that next time I take Elizabeth to the movies." Not that _that_ happened very often; Elizabeth's tastes generally ran to the kind of movies they didn't make anymore nowadays. The classics.

She'd never quite bought George Clooney as Danny Ocean, although she'd confessed ER had been a guilty pleasure of hers for a while.

"Getting a bucket of popcorn is probably a good idea, too."

Peter hadn't really considered Mrs Holt the type to enjoy a dinner-and-movie date. Neal had speculated she wasn't, really - she was only doing this because she thought Peter (or rather: Tom Carpenter) was.

The sting of guilt he'd felt at hearing that, at the suggestion that this woman might actually, genuinely be trying to get him to like her, had come as a bit of a relief. And yet - didn't Neal ever feel something like that? Was the only difference between him and Peter that Neal had done this sort of thing so often by now (often at Peter's request, this past year, or at least with Peter's approval) that it didn't bother him anymore?

"Anything else?"

"Tom." Mrs Holt smiled at him. Peter berated himself for not having seen her approach. "Please tell me you're not one of those men who can only think about work."

"Not at all," he said, smiling back.

"Have fun!" Neal told him cheerfully, before Peter ended the call.

 

"She really acts as if she likes me." Which was ridiculous, Peter felt. Tom Carpenter wasn't interesting, or good-looking, or even particularly well-off. He was a perfectly ordinary guy with a boring job at some office or another.

[06. Phone]

Neil Gardiner had been the one with the interesting backstory, the not unimpressive bank-account and the good looks. Why would a woman like Patricia Holt prefer a nobody over someone like that?

"Perhaps she does. You and Carpenter have got a lot in common, after all."

Peter frowned, wishing Neal was actually here, with him, so that Peter could see his expression. "And?"

"And you're definitely not unattractive."

"What are you getting at here?" Peter asked, a little annoyed. He was getting the feeling Neal was trying very hard not to say something, to avoid the actual issue.

"Elizabeth married you, didn't she? And Elizabeth is - her taste is impeccable."

"I know she likes you a lot," Peter admitted, not adding that he did, too. Neal _knew_ that; Peter didn't need to tell him. "I might be jealous if I didn't - are you getting anywhere with those records?"

"When we find something, I'll let you know," Neal promised.

 

"I'm sorry, Patricia." Peter was surprised to find he almost meant it.

[07. Disappointment]

"Pat, please." She pulled a handkerchief out of her purse and dabbed at her eyes. "I keep telling you."

The records had shown her to be mostly innocent - the money had been hers, and Peter thought she should have kept better track of what it had been used for, and what kind of documents she was putting her signature on, but all the same, he felt a bit sorry for her.

"We just met back up again after six months and, well ... " He shrugged helplessly.

"I understand. My own husband - he infuriated me ever so often, and I would yell terrible things at him, but in the end, I loved him and he loved me." Peter had noticed she was still wearing her wedding-band, in spite of her late husband having been dead for close to three years.

"You'll meet someone worthy of your affection, I'm sure." Neal had told him that was important: to not make the other person feel as if the fault was theirs. "More worthy than I was."

"Oh, Tom, please." She offered him a watery smile. "You're a wonderful person and a good man. I'm not at all surprised she wants you back."

"Thank you for understanding," Peter said.

 

"We might be in trouble."

[08. Surprise]

"Trouble?" Peter frowned. He'd agreed to buy Neal lunch that day, after another long talk with Elizabeth. "What kind of trouble?"

"Your ex-girlfriend is headed this way."

"My what?" Peter turned around. It was, indeed, Patricia Holt headed in their direction. He wasn't sure if she'd actually seen him though. She might simply be here to buy lunch.

"This is why I usually leave town after breaking up with someone," Neal said. "It's kind of awkward to run into someone when you told them you were getting back together with your ex."

"Maybe she hasn't seen us." Seemingly at the exact moment he said it, Peter saw her spot him.

"Oops." Neal had noticed as well, clearly.

Perhaps it was better like this, anyway, Peter told himself, as she came walking to their table. Better to come clean, confess that 'Tom Carpenter' had never really existed. Maybe she deserved the truth.

"Tom?" She looked more confused than angry.

"I - " Peter started.

"Neil Gardiner." Neal's smile held an edge to it, something almost hostile. "You may remember me from the party. I'm Tom's boyfriend."

 

"Peter, honey, you do know it's not my birthday today, don't you?"

[09. Birthday]

"What - I can't bring home flowers just to say I love you?" Peter wondered if his smile looked as forced as it felt. He almost wished he'd brought Neal along. Neal was good at making people relax.

Most of the time, at least. "Hmm. Red roses. Again." Elizabeth gave him a long look. "All right, what did you do? Or, if this is about Neal: what _didn't_ you do?"

"Well, I didn't buy _him_ any flowers." Peter meant for it to sound as a joke.

"Perhaps you should have."

Her expression was serious. Nonetheless: "That's ridiculous. Why would I buy _Neal_ flowers?"

"To tell him you love him, or at least that it's okay for him to love you." Elizabeth smiled. "He's a very smart person, honey, but when it comes to things like these ... well, he's rather a lot like you."

"That's not - " Elizabeth raised one eyebrow. "I'm not - I'm _married_ , El. To you."

"Aren't you lucky to have such a very understanding wife?" Elizabeth beamed. "Although of course I also consider myself quite lucky to have a husband with such excellent taste in men."

 

"I think we should get a bigger bed," Elizabeth murmured drowsily.

[10. Sex]

"Seconded." If Peter opened his eyes, he'd probably be unable to keep from looking at his watch, and if he looked at his watch, he'd probably remember all that paperwork he'd meant to catch up on over the weekend.

"I might be able to find something." Neal sounded surprisingly awake. Peter wondered if Neal might have slipped out of bed earlier somehow and cheated by drinking some coffee. It would require an amazing feat of flexibility, considering their present position, but then again, Neal was _very_ flexible.

"If by 'find' you mean 'steal', then no thanks."

"How would you steal a bed, anyway?" Elizabeth asked. "It doesn't seem the kind of thing you can just slip in the pocket of your coat."

"Remind me to tell you some time when Peter's not there."

"El!" Peter complained. "Don't encourage him."

"It was only a question, honey."

"You know," Neal said, sounding thoughtful, "I don't think I actually ever stole a bed."

Elizabeth chuckled. Peter groaned.

"It might be an interesting challenge," Neal continued.

"An interesting challenge _in theory_ ," Peter corrected him.

"Of course."


End file.
